


might have been a crime

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Bedsharing, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Romantic Friendship, The rose garden wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 21:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20014765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: “If someone’s not coming to arrest you...” Tommy said, right into Lovett’s hair.“They might be,” Lovett interjected.“You might want to get a nap in, then. Could be a long night.”





	might have been a crime

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you as always to dasyatidae, who looks over my messy messy words and finds something worthwhile and lets me hit a lot of check marks. all stubborn mistakes are mine because sometimes following their good sense is a lot of work, so I have spackled over the structural integrity flaws.

Here is what Lovett wanted: for Tommy to feel the weight of his gaze and wake up, to somehow know that Lovett needed to not be the only consciousness in their apartment. 

Here is what Lovett was willing to do: drop his bags and say, loudly and close to Tommy's door, “Shit! Sorry, sorry, I just — bumped into…stubbed my toe.”

“Lovett,” Tommy rasped, and Lovett thought  _ shit _ even though he'd just made it happen . __

Tommy sat up in the dark, and Lovett could not clearly make him out, but he saw the wide whites of his eyes. “Yeah, it’s just me.”

“You okay, man?” 

The answer, in theory, was yes.  _ Yes,  _ he pictured himself saying. When he opened his mouth, a lost sound leaked out. 

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Tommy said, and then, “Are you in a suit?” 

“Yes,” Lovett admitted, although in fairness he was only wearing part of a suit, having shucked the jacket by the door and leaving it on the coffee table on the way in. It did not seem like the time to be splitting hairs. “I had an after hours job.”

“Jon made it home by eight.” Tommy was starting to stir again, settling into wakefulness. “He asked if I wanted to get dinner, but I was a little busy.”

“Jon is a lazy so and so,” Lovett said, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Going home to siesta while his underlings are squinting at their revisions by candlelight. Or, you know, doing other things. Stuff. Things.”

“Are you drunk?” Tommy asked. 

“Champagne was had. Consumed?” Lovett admitted. “More than one champagne. Anyways. I did something bad. I needed it.”

“Bad,” Tommy echoed. 

Lovett felt his stomach sink. “Probably not bad!” he backtracked. “Just rude, maybe. It’s definitely rude to sneak people into your boss’s house, right? But not, like, a crime.” 

“Your boss is the President of the United States. It  _ might  _ have been a crime.” 

“I didn’t do it for, like. Crime reasons,” Lovett insisted. 

“What the fuck, Lovett,” Tommy said, and then he quieted. Lovett wondered if he’d said too much, made an ass of himself. He should excuse himself and go to bed, reassured by the fact that, at least for a while, he wasn’t the only one awake in their apartment. Tommy took ages to get to sleep. The fact that they’d both be awake was already easing the ache he’d felt when picturing the opposite. 

Instead, Lovett said, “I’m a coward.” He could feel himself shaking. 

“Get in,” Tommy said, and there was no moment where Lovett considered being deliberately obtuse, like it wasn’t obvious what he meant. Instead, he scrambled into bed, dress pants and all.

Lovett’s eyes had adjusted too much, and he could make Tommy out in the glow of the digital numbers by Tommy’s bed, so he closed his eyes. He didn’t need to see him, anyway, because he could feel him, pulling Lovett in close until Lovett’s forehead was touching Tommy’s chest. 

“If someone’s not coming to arrest you...” Tommy said, right into Lovett’s hair. 

“They might be,” Lovett interjected. 

“You might want to get a nap in, then. Could be a long night.” 

It was warm in Tommy’s bed, and Lovett wondered how long he’d been sleeping. He was a bastard for waking Tommy up, and it was inexplicable that he was here, arms draped around Lovett and holding him close, palms dragging down the sides of his quivering muscles. Up close, Tommy’s voice did not have to have volume to reach him. He barely made any noise when he said, “Why are you a coward?” 

It was easier, somehow, as if he wasn’t even telling a secret, to be able to speak directly into Tommy’s chest, as if he was only thinking about his night. “I married two guy tonight.” 

Tommy’s hand touched Lovett’s hair, and then stilled on the back of his neck. “And they didn’t invite you to the honeymoon? Ice cold.”

“Yeah,” Lovett said, dry, “I’m having recycling bin flashbacks from the rejection.” 

“Sounds like you had a long night,” Tommy said, carefully. Lovett could feel the spread of him, broad and hot, soft and relaxed. 

There was no way Tommy could understand that Lovett had stood in the rose garden and pronounced two men husband and husband. That their love was pure and true, yet he had conducted the ceremony like a shameful secret, which made him sick. And how even afterward, it was still true that he’d crafted defenses of civil unions. He wondered how many secret gay weddings he had to perform to tip the scales. He wondered if secret gay weddings were tipping the scales in the right direction, even. 

Steve and Justin deserved the hazy slant of afternoon light and two hundred of their closest friends. A confetti cannon. Instead, they’d had Lovett — who had once said that a civil union was a logical compromise with the religious right, and who had accidentally called one of them the bride. Underneath that, somehow, was a bruised joy that he’d been a part of it, and the memory of Steve, the joy spilling out of him, promising to be  _ mentally awake and morally straight  _ like the scouts they were, through and through.

Lovett had never felt less articulate. “I wasn’t working in the salt mine.”

Tommy shushed him. “You’re not a coward,” he said, like he knew anything about it. Lovett wanted to argue. Instead, he breathed in deeply, inhaling Tommy directly from the source. It was nice, and bewildering in equal measure, and Lovett thought if Mercury was in retrograde or if Hell was freezing over, he might as well make himself comfortable. 

“I think I’ve been complicit in a lot,” he said, after several minutes of matching up his breathing to Tommy’s. 

“Imagine,” Tommy said, “not being you.”

Lovett barked out a laugh. It was too harsh in his own ears. “Believe you me, Thomas. I am always picturing that.”

Tommy jostled him. “No, man, really. Think about it. What would you say to someone else, someone who does what you do.” 

Lovett’s eyes were dry, of course, but he pressed his face to Tommy’s chest to be safe. “Brave,” Tommy repeated into his hair, fingertips drawing a meandering and continuous circuit on his back, and although he hadn’t expected it, Lovett found himself slipping into the calm pull of sleep. 

In the morning, Tommy was awake when Lovett got up, and still in bed. Tommy’s bed. Which Lovett had not only slept in, but had a brief meltdown in. Lovett blurted out the first thought he had, which was a mortified, “Oh my  _ God. _ ” 

“Good morning,” Tommy said. He looked amused, when Lovett squinted at him, which Lovett guessed was good news. He had a phone in each hand, and his hair was a mess. 

“Good morning,” Lovett grumbled. His own face was pillowed on his own wrist, and very close to Tommy’s side. “Sorry I was a fucking basketcase last night.”

“This bed has seen its fair share of existential crises,” Tommy assured him. “Also, I saw Justin’s Instagram this morning.”

“Yeah.”

“You married them in, what, the rose garden?” 

Lovett felt himself color. “I indeed married them in the rose garden.”

“That’s — that’s awesome. And it’s going to be a wild story for them. Whatever part you feel bad about, that’s still true.” 

It was easier to think about in the light of morning, counterintuitively. Lovett let himself smile a little bit. “They’re so in love. They weren’t even in suits — they rolled their sleeves up, and they were still — ” 

“No one deserves it more,” Tommy said, stacking both phones on the nightstand. He lay back down so that he and Lovett were on their sides and looking at each other. Lovett squirmed under Tommy’s sudden full attention. “I’m serious. I know you think it doesn’t mean a lot, coming from me, because I mostly date women and pass or whatever.”

“Wait, rewind, I need an instant replay on the bananas thing that just came out of your mouth.”

Tommy blinked. “Are you kidding? I — can usually tell, but — but you sound so serious right now.” 

“Of course I’m serious. <i>Pass or whatever</i>,” Lovett repeated, fixing Tommy for emphasis with a pointed, unhinged sort of eye contact. 

“Okay,” Tommy said. “This has been a really enlightening morning. Lovett, you’re  _ gay. _ ”

“I know  _ I’m gay, _ ” Lovett said. He knew he sounded slightly hysterical. Something in his voice was climbing; he could not seem to reign it in.

“Right. I didn’t know how far back I needed to start.”

Lovett tried to back away from outrage, as what Tommy was trying to say began to diffuse in him. “A little past that,” Lovett said, quiet. 

“Hi, I’m bi,” Tommy said. 

“That’s it?” 

“I’m bi… sexual?” Tommy said, a grin cracking his self-assured face. You could wear that kind of expression if you were handsome and cool and had never eaten lunch in the nurse’s office. “I thought it went unsaid, because I met you and you were so obviously out, and then we became instant friends. We have drinks nights in gay bars regularly! You bumped into a dude I had over a few months ago! I didn’t know you were out there assuming everyone was straight until you walked in on one ducking dick.”

“Not all the time! Just when ... nevermind. This is getting off track. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you for — telling me.”

“Also, not to beat a dead horse, but we’ve definitely bemoaned how handsome Favs is? That’s a thing that happened.” 

“ _ I  _ was bemoaning,” Lovett said. He started to get the creeping feeling that he was being  _ too much,  _ that Tommy had already tired of this conversation. “You were… well, I thought you were being a bro.”

“Idiot,” Tommy said. 

With Tommy turned towards him, there was a place where he and Lovett’s shins were touching. Of course, nothing had changed from the night before, just because Tommy had pulled off the face Lovett was familiar with and there had been an equally handsome face beneath, and that face belonged to Tommy, who had been secretly bi all along. 

Nothing had changed, and yet.  _ And yet.  _

Some flinching instinct inside of Lovett implored him,  _ Roll over. Turn away. Go to work.  _ Something primal insisted this was a ludicrous setup, and it ended in laughter (Tommy's) and tears (his own.).  Lovett wondered if he would ever be able to leave it behind. Instead, he thought about how Tommy had held him last night. Tommy had known all along. 

He moved, and Tommy shifted to accommodate him as he huddled back in. Tommy would have to go to work soon, but for the moment, with his broad hand pressed between Lovett’s shoulder blades, the quaking thing inside of Lovett rested. 

**Author's Note:**

> after this fic ends the rose emoji becomes a shorthand tommy uses to punch lovett up when he's feeling like an ABJECT failure and the tommy goes to visit lovett in la and they kiss and start a life together etc. i've had this scene written for a year and obviously no good was coming of it, sitting around. also i started feeling bad when i remembered that non of the coauthored fics would count for the exchange so like, if you're my person for that, wanted you to have a few more options. 
> 
> anyways, this happens in la, when lovett sees tommy in colorful shorts:
> 
> _“The man has been unshackled from DC for three hours,” Lovett announced to absolutely no one, “and he’s already off the DL.”_
> 
> _“I was never on the DL, you asshole.” Tommy grinned, “I can’t help it you can literally only clock twinks and leather daddies who are already hitting on you.”_
> 
> _“Hey! Hyperbole!”_
> 
> _“The opposite of hyperbole. I gave you too much credit, actually, because there were definitely times where I was flirting with you.”_


End file.
